Programme Policy Officer-NOB

TERMS OF REFERENCES

Programme Policy Officer (NOB)

SO4 Activity Manager

The World Food Programme (WFP) is the world's largest humanitarian agency, fighting hunger worldwide. We are currently seeking for a qualified officer to fill the position of Programme Policy Officer to coordinate the Resilience activities and lead the work on various Climate Risk Management and Financing Initiatives. This position will be based in the Programme Unit in Antananarivo, Madagascar.

General Information:

Unit: Programme Unit

Position: NOB – Programme Policy Officer (SO4 activity manager)

Start date: ASAP

Duration: Fixed-term

Duty Station: Antananarivo, Madagascar

General Background:

Madagascar is facing an increasingly complex configuration of risks which highlights the need to identify strategies and develop programmes that are tailored to its unique risk environments in which Malagasy people work to regain and maintain wellbeing in the face of shocks and stressors. Resilience provides a foundation on which strategies and programmes may be based. Resilience programmes in WFP Madagascar aim to build the capacities of individuals, households, communities, institutions and systems to manage shocks and stressors that threaten food security, nutrition and wellbeing of WFP’s beneficiaries. Resilience can be viewed as an overarching approach to manage risk.

WFP approaches the challenge of climate change from the point of view of its impact on hunger and under nutrition. WFP’s work on climate change focuses on enhancing the resilience of food insecure communities and the country, helping them adapt to more frequent and intense climatic events.  About 40 percent of WFP’s global operations already include activities to reduce disaster risk, build resilience and help people adapt to the effects resulting from climate change. WFP is developing and testing innovative tools and approaches to help Governments and communities to manage disaster risks in a more effective manner.

Resilience strategy

Currently, as part of the country strategic planning process, WFP Madagascar is following two complementing pathways: ‘life saving and life changing’, through which WFP’s food assistance is aligned to help achieve longer-term, food security outcomes as per Sustainable  Development Goal 2 (SDG2) by helping bridge the divide between emergency and development. Resilience-building activities, incorporating targeted and integrated package of livelihood and food assistance, has a critical role in fostering the transition from emergency, to recovery, and in turn to development.

To change lives, WFP works in Madagascar to make people more resilient to shocks, particularly those induced by climate change, which threaten the agricultural production and livelihoods of the most vulnerable Malagasy people.

Our package of resilience activities covers water sourcing and management coupled with livelihood supports: Through the Food Assistance for Assets programme, we are addressing people’s immediate food needs while they build or rehabilitate water related-assets such as irrigation canals, dams, preparation of irrigated land, that will improve their long-term food security and resilience. Thanks to the partnership with the Ministry of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, the CO also builds infrastructures to provide water for consumption and production in the most vulnerable areas associated with additional climate adaptation practices supports such as conservation agriculture, reforestation, drought-resistant crop diversification, etc.

With the second resilience focus, WFP wants to ensure more sustainable interventions that address the root causes of food insecurity with longer-term impact through the integration of the most vulnerable population into the production system through land access and production training supports building the Humanitarian-Development double nexus. Partnership and collaboration are key elements of the strategy: collaboration efforts will be brought in with WFP and other emergency teams to implement relief as part of overall strategies to enhance resilience, promote self-reliance, disaster risk reduction or strengthen livelihoods. The resilience team will work with other relevant partners to frame assistance to the most vulnerable population including improvements to livelihood potential, integration into national social protection systems, and investments in regional and local economic development.

The third topic of the strategy is directed towards the expansion and strengthening of the support to smallholder farmers especially through purchase-driven activities including those which leverage public and private sectors demand (P4P and Home-grown School feeding) with nutrition-sensitive lens. The resilience strategy is also aimed to build a sustainable food system. Support to smallholder farmers resilience capacities will be linked to nutrition capital acting at the production, transformation and consumption (fortification) levels.

WFP Madagascar is also driving pro-active risk management through its support to the African Union’s African Risk Capacity (ARC), a comprehensive, integrated sovereign drought insurance solution for member states. WFP is one of the International Organizations that partners with ARC to provide additional financial and operational capacity to implement and scale up responses following successful ARC insurance pay-outs through the ARC Replica programme. Another risk management tool is the introduction of microinsurance schemes into WFP’s and Government’s programmes, to set up integrated risk management systems. WFP Madagascar has launched the R4 initiative, an integrated risk management approach, covering 3500 farmers in 2020 to be scaled-up. As the climate-related risks on food security, nutrition and livelihoods are rising, so too is our ability to forecast them. However, despite gains in early warnings, acting early enough in anticipation of impacts of climate hazards remains a significant challenge. WFP Madagascar has also begun to test forecast-based financing (FbF) and early action mechanisms, innovations that use climate forecasting and other related information to trigger anticipatory actions before a shock occurs.

Specific responsibilities and tasks:

The role of the Programme Policy Officer (NOB) will be to coordinate with resilience stakeholders and relevant units and to provide support to the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of climate risk management, resilience building and livelihoods activities.

The Programme Policy Officer (NOB) will lead the coordination of the resilience programming in close coordination with the Country Office Prog Unit, counterparts in HQ, and Regional Bureau. S/he will also lead the implementation of the WFP ARC Replica in Madagascar. The Programme Policy Officer (NOB) will be provided with supplementary hands-on training and exposure to enable him/her to undertake these functions.  

Specific tasks will include:

• Support the design, planning and implementation of resilience programme activities supported under the Country Strategic Plan (CSP), applying a crosscutting lens: such as climate change, gender equality and women empowerment, protection, nutrition, etc.
• Support the design, planning and the implementation of the microinsurance pilot and scale-up.
• Support the design, planning and implementation of the FBF programme.
• Lead the implementation of ARC Replica in Madagascar
  • Support country capacity assessments and capacity building requirements for WFP’s Replica contingency plans in consultation with the CPGU and partners as required, this includes participating in field missions, including national and community consultations.
  • Support the collaboration with ARC and relevant research institutes in the process of development, testing and customization of indices (parameters) used in the drought insurance policy.
  • Train the local team (particularly WFP programme unit) to ensure a good participation in the technical working groups, ensuring quality control in the final customization of the index.
• Develop strategies and approaches for the integration and effective interaction across different programmes towards an integrated resilience programming.
• Oversee preparation and dissemination of timely analytical and critical reports including proposals for improvements in operation and the scope of the resilience building activities in accordance with CSP.
• Contribute to strengthening partnerships with UN humanitarian and development agencies, NGOs, inter-governmental and governmental partners in resilience building including food assistance for assets creation (FFA), livelihood, and climate adaptation activities.
• Develop formal arrangements with implementing partners, identify proposed projects, and facilitate needed approval at the local level.
• Contribute to the preparation of accurate and timely reporting on programmes and activities that enable informed decision making and consistency of information presented to stakeholders.
• Conduct capacity strengthening activities to foster the technical and operational capacities of implementation teams.
• Any other related duties as required.

Organisational Capabilities:

• Purpose – ability to align individual purpose to WFP’s mission.
• People - support our people to be the best equipped to serve our beneficiaries.
• Partnership – lead across boundaries to deliver the best for our beneficiaries.
• Performance – deliver practical, sustainable, solutions to achieve WFP’s mission.

Qualifications and experience:

• Advanced University degree, or University degree with experience and training/courses in one or more of the following disciplines: agriculture and food security, climate change adaptation, environmental studies, insurance/finance, development studies or related area.
• At least 5 years’ experience in smallholder famers support, climate change adaptation, disaster risk finance, food security analysis, policy and/or, disaster risk management or related area.
• Experience in monitoring & evaluation, program analysis and monitoring, or Programme Coordination in a humanitarian/ development context with UN Agencies, NGO, government, or private sector.
• Knowledge or experience in climate risk management in Madagascar and/or macro and micro insurance policies would be considered an asset.
• Proficiency in Windows, MS Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook)

Working Languages:

• Fluency level of French and English (proficiency/level C) required and intermediate knowledge (intermediate/level B) of another UN official language (Arabic, Chinese, English, Russian and Spanish) desirable.

Supervision:

The Programme Policy Officer (NOB) will work with the overall supervision of the Head of Programme in collaboration with the other Head of units.

Applicants to submit online applications according to the following procedures:

Step 1: Click on the below links:

Interested internal applicants: http://newgo.wfp.org/services/e-recruitment

Interested external applicants: http://www1.wfp.org/careers/job-openings

Step 2: Click on “Apply” to register and create your online CV.

Step 3: Submit your application.

NOTE: You must complete Step 3 in order for your application to be considered for this vacancy.

Female candidates are especially encouraged to apply.

The deadline for this position is on  08 August 2021.